Donalee Markus, Ph.D.

Since 1983, Donalee Markus and her Designs for Strong Minds™ associates have been maximizing intelligence for individuals and corporations throughout the World. An innovative program of exercises, Designs for Strong Minds™, uses game-like, context-free exercises to filter out emotional influences, which allows the participants to work solely on cognitive skills.

Dr. Markus has designed programs for children, adolescents, professionals, and aging adults. Dr. Markus has had tremendous success working with individuals who have suffered traumatic head injuries. In addition, she was selected to design a program for NASA's Critical Thinking Skills Project.

Most people play to their strengths, avoiding situations where they need to use skills with which they are less comfortable. However, through context-free exercises, Dr. Markus helps these individuals strengthen their weaknesses by building and exercising their neuro pathways.

The Designs for Strong Minds™ exercises allow individuals to hold more information, sort and organize information in innovative ways, and collect information from a broader base. These skills then help participants:

Enhance their communication skills

Increase their flexibility and risk taking

Improve their analytical ability

Optimize their creativity

Designs for Strong Minds™ maximizes intelligence by making participants aware of the ways in which they think. The program:

Allows participants to understand their thought processes

Gives them insight into their problem solving strategies

Gives them the courage to take risks

Presents them with options for change and change to come

Offers the opportunity to habituate new processing behaviors

Dr. Markus earned her Ph.D. at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1983. She did post-doctoral work under Reuven Feuerstein (see pic below) at the Hadassah-Wizo Research Institute, Jerusalem, Israel.